Professionals daydreaming of starting their own businesses may figure that the best time to get started is when they’ve built career capital and stable finances. But founders like Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, and Alexandr Wang have bucked the norm that you need decades of experience to be a successful entrepreneur. And now, Ronnen Harary, the 55-year-old cofounder of toy empire Spin Master, even says he “couldn’t start” his company at his current ripe age.
“I’m an advocate of just starting a little bit earlier, and then letting all the energy and all the benefits of starting earlier compound. And there’s a lot of benefits of starting in your 20s,” Harary said in a recent Business Insider interview.
“Everybody’s rooting for you. When you’re 25, no one sees you as competition. When you’re at 35, potentially people see you as competition.”
Harary was just 23 when he cofounded the company with his childhood best friend Anton Rabie and university classmate Ben Varadi in Toronto, Canada. Right after graduating college, they launched Spin Master in 1994, releasing a grass-growing novelty toy called Earth Buddy. It was an unexpected hit, and the company continued to release new products.
Its toys have since defined the childhood of millions of kids; millennials might remember growing up with Etch A Sketch and ICEE makers; and for Gen Zers, Spin Master toys like Mighty Beanz and Kinetic Sand were all the rage. Today, Gen Alpha has come to know the brand through Paw Patrol: a highly popular TV show airing in over 160 countries and 30 languages. It is currently Spin Master’s biggest franchise, with its third feature film hitting the silver screen this week.
